About-face on immigration reflects Sen. John McCain's challenge

Sen. John McCain once was one of America's best-known champions of bipartisan immigration reform, bucking some members of his own party in his trademark "maverick" style.

Not these days. Sounding like the border hard-liners he used to ridicule, McCain in a recent re-election campaign commercial calls for the completion of "the danged fence" between the United States and Mexico. He also has embraced Arizona's recently enacted immigration-enforcement law, a controversial measure that has sparked calls for economic boycotts of the state.

As for his maverick image, McCain this year has flatly rejected it, saying he never considered himself one.

Political experts say McCain is politicking - and although the maneuvering is not pretty and may turn off some former fans, he actually may save his political life in a challenging environment.

Still, the Arizona Republican's old allies on immigration are amazed that the guy who just a few years ago fought for a path to citizenship for undocumented workers by the side of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and passionately defended illegal immigrants as "God's children" seemingly has morphed into a partisan border hawk.

"I find it so hard to believe that he was insincere then and he's sincere now," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a national organization that advocates for comprehensive immigration reform. "I would prefer to think that that was the real McCain and he's making some political calculations that he thinks are necessary. And I'm not sure he realizes how much he is undercutting the thing that people find most admirable about him."

For a Republican with White House ambitions, the admiration of centrists, liberals and national pundits is a major benefit. But McCain's days as a presidential contender ended with his 2008 loss to Barack Obama. Today, he is embroiled in a tough GOP primary fight in a national political climate that is not only extremely hostile to incumbents in general but also to moderate Republicans in specific.

Conservative "tea party" anger continues to boil, as recent developments in Florida and Utah demonstrate. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a GOP moderate, saw his poll standings plunge so far in the state's Senate primary that he quit the Republican race and is running as an independent. On Saturday, three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, was denied his party's 2010 nomination by delegates at his state GOP convention.

In Arizona, the immigration debate has exploded in a political narrative that would appear to benefit former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, McCain's Republican challenger and a former conservative radio talk-show host known for railing against illegal immigration and against "amnesty," the emotionally charged word critics use to denounce comprehensive reform.

"The dilemma for the senator is that it doesn't do him any good to be a maverick and compete in the center in the general election if he's defeated in the primary," said Bruce Merrill, a veteran Arizona political scientist who has followed McCain's nearly three-decade political career. "My best guess is that he will win, but I think it could be very close. And I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't win. Because the one thing that we can't factor in yet, from a quantitative point of view, is this anti-incumbency feeling."

Running to the right

McCain certainly wouldn't be the first Republican politician to run to the right during the primary to shore up his base and then run toward the center in the general election, but he dismisses Hayworth's charge that his tough border stance represents "an election-year conversion."

McCain maintains his positions remain consistent with the tactical shift he made in 2007 during the GOP presidential-primary race. Citing the public outcry that killed comprehensive reform that year, McCain started saying that the border must be secured before addressing other reforms such as a guest-worker program or a path to citizenship. His campaign points out that even the 2007 comprehensive bill included 370 miles of border fencing and 200 miles of vehicular barriers.

Last year, McCain joined the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and zeroed in on the threats posed by violent Mexican drug cartels. In March 2009, he called for National Guard troops to be deployed to the border.

"I didn't know 2009 was an election year," McCain told The Arizona Republic. "It's very convenient rhetoric, but it's contradicted by the record. You've kind of got to expect that."

He laughed off suggestions that he has somehow changed, saying he has heard that complaint on and off for years. Certainly, McCain's maverick reputation often has been declared dead in the past, notably in 2004 when he supported President George W. Bush's re-election and in 2006, when he mended fences with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, whom he'd previously slammed in a speech with other "agents of intolerance."

During McCain's 2008 presidential run, foes declared his maverick image dead on multiple occasions, even as McCain was promoting himself and running mate Sarah Palin as a couple of mavericks.

"I remember John Kerry saying in the 2008 campaign, 'It's not the John McCain that I knew!' - it's hilarious," McCain said. "But it's a great political ploy, though, because then you really attack somebody's credibility by saying that they changed. It's a political ploy that sometimes works. I don't think it works in Arizona."

But even if his overall immigration position fundamentally remains the same, McCain's focus has been fixed on border security. His recent TV ads don't mention other aspects of comprehensive reform that political opponents could use to hammer him as an "amnesty" supporter.

That hasn't stopped Hayworth from trying. An April Hayworth fundraising e-mail titled "McCain Expected To Propose Amnesty" illustrates the visceral power of the A-word with some conservatives: It mentions "amnesty" more than 25 times. "Based on his past performance, Arizona voters should be prepared to see Senator McCain lurch to the left if he is returned to the Senate," Hayworth said.

Polls say McCain is leading

Still, McCain thus far appears to be avoiding the fate of Crist and Bennett. A series of recent Arizona polls indicates McCain is holding a lead over Hayworth ranging from 11 percentage points to 26 percentage points, with insiders privately agreeing that it's probably a 12-point to 15-point race.

Experts say McCain appears to be taking the steps he needs to win his party's nomination, even if the strategy forever tarnishes the maverick brand that was so integral to his rise on the U.S. scene in the 1990s and his first presidential campaign in 2000.

"I know the primary is in August, but it looks as though McCain has probably outmaneuvered Hayworth," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "So, you have to give him credit for political sense, but the level of admiration for McCain has declined enormously, at least in certain circles."

National political analyst Charlie Cook put it more bluntly in a Tuesday column he wrote for National Journal: "The truth is that McCain would be a dead man in this primary had he not seen this coming and begun repositioning himself. The political climate for a Republican who has long relished poking his party's ideologues in the eye is awful."

Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is facing former Rep. J.D. Hayworth in a U.S. Senate GOP primary race, is embroiled in a tough fight amid a national political climate that is not only hostile to incumbents in general but to moderate Republicans in particular.